She needed to clear her head.
Her Brion guards insisted on following her around. It was carefully explained to Isolde that naturally she didn’t have access to all of the ship, but she could walk in the communal areas. The Triumphant was a huge ship and always in air. One of her guards – Ensha – said that some Brions spent their entire lives on the ship. So while it was a military vessel, people still lived in it.
To Isolde’s eyes, it was pretty much exactly what she had imagined. Aliens had no eye for aesthetics, or their understandings differed completely from humans. There was not a single thing that did not bear any reasonable, easily-understood function. Everything was useful for something or to someone.
Isolde’s mind spun. She had never really liked scented candles or other such trinkets, but within five minutes of walking around she began to miss something with no purpose whatsoever. Feng shui seemed to exist in a separate universe to these guys.
Oh yes, the guys. The hunks that all looked like they’d just walked off the pages of Hunks Monthly. Not to mention their commander, the conqueror of worlds and apparently, women’s hearts.
Isolde was definitely swooning. That was very uncool. Swooning happened to teenage girls and was directed at pop stars. Now she was imagining Diego on stage, in a tight leather coat, surrounded by hordes of fan girls dying to just breathe the same air he did. Rolling her eyes at herself because there was no one else to do it, she wondered if these aliens brewed alcohol and if drinking it would kill her.
Ensha followed at a respectful enough distance, gently tugging her away when she started to walk down a forbidden corridor. They eventually ended up in a huge hangar-like area with the same kind of screens for walls Isolde had seen on the Forger. She made her way to them at once, staring wide-eyed at strange constellations flashing by, as much as she could tell at least.
Oh God. Space was so big.
And so far, not what she had imagined. For one, the Brions seemed surprisingly calm and unthreatening for their reputation, even with those huge blades on their backs. Other than the obvious fear-mingled respect they showed Grothan, the warriors didn’t seem to pick a fight with everything that breathed like Isolde had been told. Ensha, for example, seemed to think her strange and her presence weird, but when Isolde asked him something, he answered politely and without any trace of negativity she could discern.
She thought of Rhea. Isolde had only a very basic understanding of galactic maps, and the only thing she truly knew was that Rhea was far. Such a fun word in terms of space travel.
Space, however, seemed to be as black as ever as she was carried away from her home and everything she had ever known at a speed she couldn’t even comprehend. It should have made her sad, but with no remaining family and few friends, Isolde found herself more excited than torn apart by the leaving. She only had to ditch her suitor, and then she could start her work on Rhea, return to Terra in a few years, publish extensively, and maybe get a new mission… Space didn’t seem all that bad.
Beside her, Ensha suddenly tensed up. He seemed to be listening to something. “Understood,” he said finally.
“Isolde Fenner,” he said – Why did they have to do that, she wondered as in her experience people only ever said her full name when they were really mad at her – “I have been instructed by the Commander to inform you of an unfortunate development. It seems the ship you should have been on, the ship you missed, was attacked and destroyed by an as of yet unknown assailant. The commander assures you that we are working with the rest of the GU to find out who is behind this. He thought you should know and says you have nothing to fear here.”
Oh.
So space wasn’t all that bad, huh. Just bad aliens coming from out of the dark and shooting your ship to pieces. Metal pieces, and glass pieces, and plastic pieces, and human pieces. Isolde hated her mind for jumping to conclusions, but like often as of late, her mouth started talking before the ready-to-go from her brain.
“They had a flotilla,” she said quietly. “A force protecting them. Where was that?”
Ensha shrugged. “I do not know. I was told no one survived, so I suppose the flotilla was destroyed as well.”
So many lives lost. And all those who had wanted to help were dead too, then. She imagined all the pieces floating lifelessly in space. And to think she had hurried, hurried with all her might to be on that doomed ship. Survivor’s guilt really was a thing. Suddenly she felt like she had cheated death.
“I would like to go back to my room,” Isolde said, tears brimming at the corners of her eyes. She had to lean on a wall for support for a moment, but she’d be damned if she was going to cry in front of the Brions.#p#分页标题#e#
Ensha nodded, as if everything was alright and to be expected. They went back, Isolde walking in a blur of her tears. She locked the door behind her and only then did the tears come.
She didn’t even know how she should grieve. There were no candles she could light, no possibility for a ceremony. All she could do was just dedicate some of her thoughts to the people who had been on time. Good, punctual people. It felt somehow more real because she had been briefed thoroughly on her companions-to-be. Isolde felt like she knew the research team, as if friends had been robbed from her without her ever having met them.
At least it was a distraction from her problems of an alien proposal with little chance to refuse. Still, space seemed a bit colder than it had been even an hour ago.
There was a strange sound reminding her of a doorbell, and for once, the comparison justified itself. The screen next to her door suddenly flared to life, showing the image of Grothan. It waited for her approval. Isolde was quite surprised the commander hadn’t just waltzed in, but after she had answered and Grothan was in, he elaborated, “I did not want to intrude. I am not familiar with human traditions of grief. If this is a private matter to you, I will leave.”
It was a private matter, but Isolde didn’t exactly want to be alone. She shook her head. “Stay. We can talk about something. Something else.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Diego
This was… unfamiliar.
Not in a bad way. Diego Grothan had simply never experienced a longing like this. It wasn’t merely physical, although his body called to hers with unrelenting passion. Yet he also found himself wanting to simply be in her company. The Brions weren’t a very talkative species to begin with, but he didn’t even have to say anything with her. Being in a room with her made his surroundings resonate in a weird way, like a constant soothing song that eased all tension out of him. He understood now what the bound Brion men sought out when they were in stress.
He was very grateful that he hadn’t had any understanding of it before. It was doubtful he could have stood the anticipation if he’d actually known what he had to look forward to.
Something else was on his mind as well. The commander was simply unsure if it was a good idea to express it to Isolde. He let his senses unfold further away from him, catching her in his neural net, becoming hypersensitive to sound and light and scent.
There. There it was again. Her temperature rose when he was around, he was certain of it. Human or not, the change was noticeable. Experimentally, he moved closer, still not saying anything. Isolde was sitting on a couch and tensed up immediately at his approach. The color of her cheeks changed again, just as it had before and the temperature rose even more. Especially… down there. He had to contain himself. No use upsetting her. If she wanted to reason with him, he could give back as he received.
“You were not completely honest with me before,” he said.
Isolde’s eyes went wide with surprise.
“If you’re reading my mind, stop at once,” she sputtered. “That is a horrible invasion of privacy.”
“I can’t read your mind,” Diego said, “but I can sense your body.”
More of red on her cheeks. Red meant good, according to his readings.
“When I asked before if you were sick and required a healer, you told me it was space travel making you feel that,” he continued.
He had been right. Her eyes gave her away immediately. When she didn’t offer any comment on that, he pushed on, “I read about humans. All the signs you have can point to illness, but they can also point to arousal. You want me.”
Her glares were quickly becoming an aphrodisiac to him.
“You sound like you figured that out on your own,” she said, her tone hurt. “I told you that before. And stop reading me with your senses; it’s almost as bad as literally reading my mind. So yeah, you’re attractive. That’s it.” She became quiet then, as if she’d suddenly remembered who she was talking to.
“So you did,” Diego agreed. “But it gets stronger as I get closer. Why do you deny it?”
“Because you’re forcing me to say yes!” Isolde snapped, and Diego thought if that was perhaps the first completely honest argument she had brought up in her defense. “So I’m saying no.”
“I think your own body is saying yes much more loudly than you’re leading me to believe.”
“My body can say what it wants.”#p#分页标题#e#